> rEFInd is _so_ much simpler

TBH I've only used it for Hackintoshes and BSDs. I don't know why you'd want it.

But I am finding this hard to post on account of this big hairy grey thing with a long prehensile nose that's in the way...

They only work on UEFI. I don't like UEFI. I have kit in near-daily use that doesn't have UEFI at all.

GRUB works on BIOS, UEFI, x86, Arm, whatever. It boots Linux, all the BSDs, Haiku, whatever. So GRUB wins.

I hate GRUB for its hostility and unfriendliness and impenetrability... But it does the job on more kit than, well, any of the alternatives.

You haven't upgraded any x86 compatible beyond 2005? /s

/s notwithstanding... no.

I run a bunch of decade-old HP Microservers. All BIOS-only.

My personal laptops are old Thinkpads, from before the keyboards went crappy & Lenovo took away the expansion options. So they're all about 15, ?20 generation at the newest, but they are all maxed-out and go like stink. BIOS boot mode optional.

My default hypervisor is VirtualBox, because it runs the same on Linux, Windows and Mac. Defaults to BIOS boot.

This is not like some ancient history. All run current OSes and distros.

Thinkpads were all UEFI since T410 (and related other models), not to mention a lot of non-thinkpad machines since ~2005 were UEFI Type 1 (i.e. "always boot to BIOS emulation mode, but everything underneath is UEFI").

Thus the /s :-)

does it support encrypted /boot though?

does refind support secure boot and measured boot? I loathe pretty much anything systemd but systemd-boot gives me this with zero effort, and it's legitimately useful

Secure boot, yes: I just had to futz with that a few weeks back when the CUDA toolkit installed Nvidia-signed drivers.

Or just use systemd-boot which uses BLS thus there are no config files.

BLS means many config files instead of one, not zero config files.

> BLS means many config files instead of one

Which ones? If you want to all you need is a single UKI in /EFI/Linux and everything is synthesized from that.

systemd-boot's automatic sourcing of UKIs isn't a BLS thing. This is BLS:

https://uapi-group.org/specifications/specs/boot_loader_spec...

Type2 loader entries are just UKIs[1]. I don't know what you are implying with "systemd-boot's automatic sourcing of UKIs isn't a BLS thing"? Any way I try to interpret it, neither would the Type1 entries fall under the definition of automatic sourcing (neither anything any other bootloader does).

[1]: https://uapi-group.org/specifications/specs/boot_loader_spec...

Systemd-boot is my choice for any simple boot scenario. Love it. Agreed that grub is a mess

There's also systemd-boot, which seems to be getting more popular.

https://systemd.io/BOOT/

That's what I'm currently using in gentoo and it's fine. Realistically there's only 1 config file to modify if I want to change kernel settings and otherwise it just works.

That said, I'm probably going to try a straight EFI boot on my next laptop.

https://wiki.gentoo.org/wiki/EFI_stub

Friends don't let friends perpetuate harmful dogmatic FUD that lacks nuance and perspective.

Calling an opinion you don't like FUD doesn't make that opinion wrong, harmful, or dogmatic.

Loved that too much hahaha: “friends don’t let friends use grub”.

rEFInd seemed best for me too

I'm using rEFInd because it can load and use the NVMe EFI driver unlike GRUB and systemd-boot. rEFInd is a true UEFI boot loader.

I think that Fedora doesn't know to update its configuration when I install or remove a kernel, so I use rEFInd only to run systemd-boot which is pretty well supported by Fedora. I could probably try letting rEFInd scan the boot partition for kernels or modify/tune kernel-install [1], but why fix something that's not broken?

As a side note, I don't like how by default rEFInd does some things automatically and how it makes the boot menu kind of bloated. I had to do configure it a bit, but at least it lets you include separate configuration files that override the defaults or add menu entries. This is why I don't consider it quite simple; I prefer the more minimalist approach of systemd-boot.

[1]: https://www.freedesktop.org/software/systemd/man/latest/kern...

Back when the earth was still cooling, I remember having to choose between grub and lilo. Who wants a little worm in their computer? I went with Lilo.

Now I use grub, because I don't know much better. I'll check out rEFINd.

Can refind boot a .iso file that just happens to be on a disk somewhere? Grub can!

if you are a level 11 uber hacker and know how to do that.

I had to do it a bunch and after many many times I still couldn't remember without looking at my notes

Or even better: https://zfsbootmenu.org/

I use zfsbootmenu and I love it.